The official TrainerRoad thread

daniel_b

Question for you fellow TR-ers.

I currently turbo on a road bike, but want to TT next year.

I have a TT frame that I need to build up, but its a strict TT bike, so will not have drop handlebars.

I currently spend quite a bit of time in the drops on the turbo, which has helped me adjust to a more aero position, and I can now hold this position for longer out on the road.

I also have some clip on aero bars which I have yet to fit, so am toying with the idea of either fitting aero bar clip ons to the road bike, so give me the best of all worlds - theoretically, or to put the TT bike on, but then I lose any time in the drops.

Perhaps I should chop and change, they are both 10 spd setups at least, so could live off the same cassette technically.

Or run the TT bike for the TT season, and then switch to road bike, but still with clip on bars, for the rest of the year.

Opinions?

sampras38

Yeah, that's the one.

Did Mills this afternoon and was hanging off the bars on the last interval, otherwise they were tough enough but not too tough where I needed to drop the %. Been off the bike for a few months and just starting to get back to it. FTP was 253 3 weeks ago and will test again in a week. I'm just a sportive rider, nothing special. 4 Marmotte's, 5 Wales Dragons, that sort of thing. Few KG's to lose for next year but shouldn't be a problem. I've had a coach in the past but I have a fitness background and prefer to do things on my own. Really enjoying TR so far.

Daniel B wrote:

fpinela8 wrote:

Tempted to give TrainerRoad a go but I don't know how to conciliate it with outdoor rides. How do you guys stick to the plan if you have 2/3 club rides a week?

Not in a position of experience to share unfortunately, but TR seem to suggest that you merely replace x number of rides with those you have completed outside.
IF I were in your position, and was tackling a mid volume 5 rides a week plan, and had 3 outdoor rides, dependant on how hard or not, those rides were, I would likely lose the easier turbo of the week, and two others, and then just ride two on turbo.
I did ask the question of whether it was better to choose a low volume, and then add outdoor rides on top of this, but they always advise to not do this, and replace TR rides with external ones - I guess so the stress is still in the same vicinity, and that maybe the low volume rides are proportionally a higher stress factor than 3 from the mid volume courses.

sampras38 wrote:

New TrainerRoad user here and really enjoying it so far. Currently working my way through Sweet Spot Base Phase and doing Mid Volume 2. Will be on Mills later today..

Last time I carried out Mills (March) I enjoyed it a lot) but I was significantly less fit than I am now - IIRC, it's one where they ask you to keep your cadence high, but as they are nice snappy efforts, I personally found it managable - also appreciated the way the effort required starts decreasing almost as soon as you start.

Out of interest, do you just watch the bars, or do you minimise and watch cycling\tv programs?
I do the latter, well apart from when tacking an FTP, which I will be doing tomorrow morning :shock:

bobmcstuff

fpinela8 wrote:

Tempted to give TrainerRoad a go but I don't know how to conciliate it with outdoor rides. How do you guys stick to the plan if you have 2/3 club rides a week?

I just do the low volume version of the plans and do the outside rides as well. LV plans are 3 workouts per week so you can ride outside 2 or 3 times a week as well without too much problem.

Depends how full on your club rides are to some extent, because to some extent the shorter versions of the plans have a slightly higher training load per hour (so you're getting as much "bang for your buck" as possible so to speak). A couple of weeks earlier in the year I rode 2 chaingangs during the week then a hard club ride at the weekend, so once or twice I told TR that I had done the longer weekend ride outdoors and did an easier session instead (the general format of those plans is 2 shorter rides midweek plus a longer session at the weekend). Or if I ride outside both days at the weekend I'll either do the longer weekend ride during the week or tell TR I did it outside.

One thing I did find with that approach is that in April/May when I started riding outside more often I was just doing more training than TR expected so by the end of the plan I was finding the workouts quite easy (not really a problem, because it means you're fitter, just means you need to either do another FTP test or bump the intensity).

daniel_b

bobmcstuff wrote:

Daniel B wrote:

Might just have been a bad day\lack of sleep\coming down with something?

I now have tonsilitis - turns out I was coming down with something after all.

Euuuuurrrggghhh........

Well Bob - it was my turn to crash and burn this morning :?

So last night, had a good meal of pasta, earlyish night, although woken up at about 1am by my 4 year old, as her quilt had come off, and she wanted her waterbottle re-heated - carried those out, and went back to bed, but took me a good hour to get back to sleep.
Also had felt a little bit of a temperature during the night, and the odd sneeze - both daughter and gf have a minor cold at the moment, so did consider that I might be getting it.
At one point, laying in bed, not feeling all that, and wide awake, was thinking that completing an FTP in the morning was extremely unlikely.

Anyway, alarm went off at 6 - woke up, and felt completely ok, so decided to go for it.

This bit is different, and I decided to take advice from internet people - previously I have FTP'd early morning, with no breakfast in me, just a strong cup of coffee - but this morning I woke up, and had only 30g of porridge with semi skimmed milk, some maple syrup, seeds, and a caffeinated cup of coffee.
I then gave it 60 minutes before getting on the bike.

I have notes from previous FTP's I have done, and generally leave it in 4th gear, and then set the % resistance. Previous efforts had been 21% and 22% respectivevly, so it seemed to make sense to go for 23% - this would enable me, I thought, to come away with hopefully an average of 270, at around the 91 cadence point.

So the first 8 minuter went well, but it was properly hard, and perhaps felt more like a final 8, rather than a first 8 - made it through it though, although I did notice my HR was up higher than usual.

Went for the second one, and made it through the first 2 minutes, and then really started to struggle - dropped intensity to 22, and then after a minute popped it up to 24, to see if I could maintain power with a lower cadence (Sometimes I can grind it when required) but not long after this I completely capitulated, and just rode it out at below 200 watts.

Pretty disappointed, and decided not to take the proffered new FTP, and instead manually overrode it from the previous 229 to 234 - I went for that on the basis that I suspect I could have held 260 for both 8's - appreciate that is a guess, and perhaps wishful thinking, but does anyone think that is reasonable?

I have a hill climb on Sunday, so I could FTP again after that, but I'm half thinking to wait until the next scheduled one, and then we go again and see what the lay of the land is.

After checking the HR data - my average HR for the first one was 2.1% higher than the fasted one I did back in June.
Ah just to clarify, when I say fasted - the evening before, I would have a bowl of muesli and bran flakes, probably about 8pm, so not sure if that makes it less fasted as it were?

Am thinking if that works for me, perhaps I should stick to it, OR maybe I neeed to leave more time between eating and riding, or perhaps this is down to me not quite being 100%.

Here it is, in ALL it's glory :shock:


Re the 4th gear and adjusting the percentage thing - I wonder if I need to work further down the block, so the percentage change is less impactful, ie if I was running on lets say 6th gear, I would clearly need less percentage, but I think it would give me more fine tuning options with regards to holding slight power increases - does that make sense, or am I missing something?

Or it might be that I need to find another gear combination, as I'm not sure in 4th gear whether I could have run lower wattage, but maintained cadence, so perhaps I would have needed 6th gear, and lets say 15% or some such random number - maybe I need to play with gears and numbers beforehand to try and come up with a combination that will give me a more modest increase, as it looks like that is all I can expect at my current level of fitness.

Opinions appreciated!

Thanks

EDIT: As the day wears on, I'm definitely starting to feel a bit under the weather, so think this must be a fairly big factor in the failure of the test. So much so I needed hot soup at lunch!
I'm planning to leave my FTP and my new estimate of 234, rather than shifting it to 243, which it would have been, had I been able to match my first effort of 270.
I'm planning to revisit 12 weeks of sweet spot base now, and am thinking of putting the intensity up to 102% for the first week, and if that's ok 103, and then 104 for week 3 and beyond. My thinking being I probably have that capacity within me, but it's a vastly different mental game to reduce the intensity for a workout, as opposed to increasing it!

slowmart

Daniel, listen to what your body is saying. I ignored what was being said and a cold got a good grip on me earlier this week.

"If" I had throttled back and put back leconte and Tallac plus 2 when I had a dry throat maybe I would have missed the cold. Who knows but the lesson I'm taking is to have a more balanced approach with the view that avoiding injury and illness are as important as the drills, rest and diet.

bobmcstuff

Slowmart wrote:

Daniel, listen to what your body is saying. I ignored what was being said and a cold got a good grip on me earlier this week.

"If" I had throttled back and put back leconte and Tallac plus 2 when I had a dry throat maybe I would have missed the cold. Who knows but the lesson I'm taking is to have a more balanced approach with the view that avoiding injury and illness are as important as the drills, rest and diet.

I always find that if you're feeling like you might be coming down with something, doing some hard intervals makes it either get on with it and turn into something or b*gger off

slowmart

Bob, what's the success ratio from getting rid or losing out to the cold?

daniel_b

Thanks Chaps,

will deffo take it easy for the time being, well until the hill climb on Sunday that appears to be in torrential rain :-(

My brother swears by Bob's method - sadly for me, that always seems to advance the onset of it, which is sometimes not a bad thing, as I do wonder if it is in there, and has to happen, then perhaps you just want to get on with it, and get through it.

I was told a method, by a nurse actually, some 20 years ago which I still use to good effect, and that is as soon as you feel anything coming on, hit the vitamins - her recommendation was the effervescent 100mg tabs and to have 3-4 per day, for 2 days, and probably 75% of the time that gets rid of it, or at the very least delays the onset of worse symptoms.

Hoping to, or rather I have to shake this off by Sunday - though with a cold downpour and hill climb to complete on Sunday, I'll likely be out in it without any rain gear for 30 minutes or so, with the ride from HQ, waiting to go, and then the ride down and back to HQ, I reckon if it's going to take a hold, it will be Sunday pm! :?

I have some kind of plan to wear a helmet with an aeroshell (Was planning to go sans helmet) and some nano rain gear top and shorts - and maybe overshoes to try and keep my feet semi dry.
What a pita.

William Marshall

Deadlegs wrote:

I've read a load of the TR blogs today. Sounds like a smiley face power profile means I went off too hard. Not sure how I can match power I aim for by starting slower. Can someone tell me if these tests give anything away?
265W attempt_______________255W attempt

I struggle with pacing on the Tests but have been much better my last two by doing a bit of maths first. I estimate what I reckon my FTP might have gone up by e.g. 5 or 10 watts. Then if FTP is 95% of my 20 minute power I multiply my expected FTP by 105% to get my target power. I've then ridden to that target for the first 5-10 minutes and gauged it from there, and it's given me a good baseline to go up or down from during the remainder of the test. By the end I've been utterly utterly shagged and my tests haven't shown ski ramps or nose dives so it's working pretty well so far.

fpinela8 wrote:

Tempted to give TrainerRoad a go but I don't know how to conciliate it with outdoor rides. How do you guys stick to the plan if you have 2/3 club rides a week?

Don't know from personal experience but they say to mimic the workout you are missing as closely as possible on the outdoor ride. Because of that, they suggest doing the longer session outdoors as it's very hard to mimic the specific duration and rest period of the shorter but higher intensity workouts like a one hour VO2 max compared to say a two hour strength endurance workout.

bobmcstuff

Slowmart wrote:

Bob, what's the success ratio from getting rid or losing out to the cold?

Probably not very good

I think it just makes it come on faster really. I don't work out much on a full blown cold, maybe a few spins if it's not below the neck. Just that stage where you can't tell if it's a cold coming on or not, and sometimes it's an excuse for not riding, but when you get out there it's fine.

deadlegs

Wow I'm in love with a fan! I got Sealey HVF18" floor fan, recommended in a couple of threads (cheers Daniel . £52 on Amazon.

How did I ever use turbo without a fan? Completed Ericsson, Carson & Eclipse this week (adding 5W each time). Fan only on lowest setting - makes huge difference. Still soaked afterwards but heat is manageable.

Thanks for all the FTP test advice. I'm going to wait until start of Sweet Spot 2, then try 8 min test (with better pacing).

daniel_b

Deadlegs wrote:

Wow I'm in love with a fan! I got Sealey HVF18" floor fan, recommended in a couple of threads (cheers Daniel . £52 on Amazon.

How did I ever use turbo without a fan? Completed Ericsson, Carson & Eclipse this week (adding 5W each time). Fan only on lowest setting - makes huge difference. Still soaked afterwards but heat is manageable.

Thanks for all the FTP test advice. I'm going to wait until start of Sweet Spot 2, then try 8 min test (with better pacing).

Yay, glad you are a fan of the fan - it's a good solid unit, and the 3rd speed is useful in summer, and for the harder sessions - the ones where the IF is 0.9 or above specifically.

I found some slightly better results with angling it down a touch, so it hits the legs and lower body more - guess that is the bit that will overheat a fair bit!

daniel_b

Evening all, after a bit of advice, and or opinions really.

Pre TR, my cadence I would have said was around 77 ish, and I was pretty slow.
Using TR, my cadence is now pretty solid at 90 on average, and I follow that fairly closely on the workouts, and also it now just happens out on the road.
I feel less knackered, at the end of rides too.

This afternoon I completed Carson - 6 intervals, 2 * 5 minutes, 2 * 6 & 2 * 7 - these are between 88 and 94% of FTP, so reasonably taxing, but the novelty of this one, as I read and acted upon the instructions, was that I rode each pair of intervals at 85 and 75 respectively.
The 85 was not much different of course, as I usually bounce between that and 95, but the 75 felt very different.
BUT I was able to hold the power with 'comparative' ease, and felt good during and after it.
Don't ask me why, but I also decided to complete all 6 of these intervals in the drops, which also felt fine.

One thing I will say, is that I have a naturally high hr, so am wondering if riding at a lower cadence, now I have better developed muscle, could either be a good strategy period, or I could try and alternate my cadence during a ride, say 90rpm for 20 minutes, and then 80rpm for 10 minutes - would that then give the muscles a chance to rest, and then the cardio system gets a rest latterly as the muscles do more work?
Or could I even look to drop my cadence permanently across the board, to something around the 80 or maybe mark? (I am thinking this is unlikely to be the best choice though)
I could, and may well.of course, simply experiment out on the road.

Or am I talking total bunkem

Edit: I did have a minor amount of what I can only describe as knee ache when I went to bed, not sure if that's a bad sign, or just that they are not used to it. All feeling fine in the morning.

Intrigued to see what people think.

William Marshall

Daniel B wrote:

so am wondering if riding at a lower cadence, now I have better developed muscle, could either be a good strategy period, or I could try and alternate my cadence during a ride, say 90rpm for 20 minutes, and then 80rpm for 10 minutes - would that then give the muscles a chance to rest, and then the cardio system gets a rest latterly as the muscles do more work?
Or could I even look to drop my cadence permanently across the board, to something around the 80 or maybe mark? (I am thinking this is unlikely to be the best choice though)

I'm intrigued why 'cardio system' would need a rest? Mark Beaumont just rode around the world at 100bpm for 18 hours a day so the heart is plenty capable of working for extended periods without rest. To my way of thinking you are confusing HR with Watts\gearing. I can noodle along say at 100 watts doing 50rpm with the kids, or 110rpm going down a hill with next to no effort in either case. I could also do 60 rpm or 110rpm at 300 watts and be working hard. It's the watts created by the terrain\gering that make the difference. The best way to ride at a high proportion of my ftp without overloading my body's ability to clear lactate acid etc is to make it cardio biased rather than muscular. Also, ATP is in pretty short supply. So for a TT or long steady alpine climb at 7% it'd be 90+ rpm. The 'rest' I feel the need for on those long climbs is standing out of the saddle to stretch, and not give my cardio a break by switching to more muscular efforts.

Couple of counter points to the above though. IIRC there's mixed research on amateurs using high cadence in comparison to pros. I think they say if you naturally ride at a low cadence\big ring then that's better than artificially trying to force yourself to spin fast. There are outliers on every spectrum of 'the norm, but I think 'high cadence' in those tests was 100rpm+ and not 90ish. The other thing is it depends what you're riding outdoors. Didn't Chad say on the podcast recently that at the single-track event he cramped because he wasn't use to <60rpm rides on steep hills and wished he trained for it? I always hit a 20% hill on outdoor rides so like to mimic that on the turbo just so it's not totally alien when I'm grinding up the s.o.b. Something mildly enjoyable about riding a bike like I'm doing 1rm effort squats.

As you say, interested to see what others have found.

Nick Kanwetz

shazzz wrote:

Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a lightning ANT+ dongle so that I can use my iPad without having to buy the Wahoo dongle and a 30 pin to lightning adaptor?
Thanks

Not to our knowledge.

You'll have to pick up both the Wahoo key and Apple adapter to enable ANT+ on your iOS devices.

But double-check to make sure the device you're using isn't dual-band. Tons of devices are coming out nowadays that are both ANT+ and Bluetooth enabled, and if they are, it's likely your iOS device can connect to them without purchasing extra adapters.

Let us know if you run into any other questions—thanks!

Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Mark01

I've just come back to trainerroad after a lay off since February. This time I had a better idea of what I was doing with the FTP test, consequently I'm working a lot harder in the plan than before, which has to be a good thing! I think the first time I was too keen to "start training", I'd have been much better off repeating the ftp.

My goal is to give crit racing a go next year so will focus training on that after the base phase. My question though is which volume should I use? I cycle to work 4 times a week, 7 miles each way and i try and keep an easy pace. I also do some racing training with the local devo team on a Saturday about 1hr30 /20 miles and also like to get in a 40-50 mile ride on Sun at about 17-18mph. Should I select mid volume and skip the long weekend turbo ride as I cover that outside? Or just enter the low volume which is what I have time for on the turbo? Hopefully I've managed to explain myself. Any advice, thoughts welcome.

2plus2

I'm trying to get an idea of the discrepancy between my Tacx Flow smart trainer and 4iiii power meter. Power match is not working well for me so I'd like to ideally just use the Flow in erg mode, however the power is quite a bit off from the 4iiii.

In order to do this I'm running in resistance mode. Ideally I'd like to output the power meter data and the smart trainer power data from the one Trainer Road ride file... Does anyone know if this is possible?

The way I'm doing it currently is running one power source to TR and one to my Garmin, then getting the raw data from Golden Cheetah and graphing both in Excel...this is a bit clumsy and time consuming though.

Nick Kanwetz

Mark01 wrote:

I've just come back to trainerroad after a lay off since February. This time I had a better idea of what I was doing with the FTP test, consequently I'm working a lot harder in the plan than before, which has to be a good thing! I think the first time I was too keen to "start training", I'd have been much better off repeating the ftp.

My goal is to give crit racing a go next year so will focus training on that after the base phase. My question though is which volume should I use? I cycle to work 4 times a week, 7 miles each way and i try and keep an easy pace. I also do some racing training with the local devo team on a Saturday about 1hr30 /20 miles and also like to get in a 40-50 mile ride on Sun at about 17-18mph. Should I select mid volume and skip the long weekend turbo ride as I cover that outside? Or just enter the low volume which is what I have time for on the turbo? Hopefully I've managed to explain myself. Any advice, thoughts welcome.

Howdy,

Thanks for posting, and for providing us with a bit of background too. You explained everything to a T.

With the commutes and weekend rides, we'd recommend choosing the Low-Volume approach, and then swapping the weekend workout with your racing training and Sunday outdoor rides. So you'll basically be following the Tue/Thur schedule for your interval work, working on your aerobic endurance throughout the week via lower-intensity commuting, and capping off the week with your racing training and Sunday rides.

This sounds like plenty of training stimulus to keep your progress trending in the right direction, but you can also move up a plan volume overtime if this doesn't seem to be enough. Even bumping up to the Mid-Volume wouldn't be a huge uptick in training stress since the only addition to the weekly training load would be the extra Wednesday aerobic endurance workout. If you think you need the extra work, feel free to bump things up by moving up a plan volume, but it sounds like the Low-Volume will be a great fit considering your other training.

We're stoked to have you training with us again and are looking forward to hear how the crit racing shakes out for you!

Let us know if you run into any other questions—cheers!

Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Nick Kanwetz

2plus2 wrote:

I'm trying to get an idea of the discrepancy between my Tacx Flow smart trainer and 4iiii power meter. Power match is not working well for me so I'd like to ideally just use the Flow in erg mode, however the power is quite a bit off from the 4iiii.

In order to do this I'm running in resistance mode. Ideally I'd like to output the power meter data and the smart trainer power data from the one Trainer Road ride file... Does anyone know if this is possible?

The way I'm doing it currently is running one power source to TR and one to my Garmin, then getting the raw data from Golden Cheetah and graphing both in Excel...this is a bit clumsy and time consuming though.

Sorry to hear PowerMatch has been acting up on you.

We'd love to try and hash out the issues you've been running into! Power discrepancies between devices aren't always consistent, so ideally we'd like to get PowerMatch working so you don't need to worry about any difference. But as far as tracking the difference, comparing the power output on a head-unit and another within TrainerRoad is likely the easiest solution.

Can you follow up with our support team at support@trainerroad.com when you have some time? We'll have one of our agents investigate what's causing your issues, and we'll get you back in action as soon as we possibly can!

Thanks! Looking forward to getting to the bottom of this for you.

Get Faster with TrainerRoad

2plus2

Nick Kanwetz wrote:

2plus2 wrote:

I'm trying to get an idea of the discrepancy between my Tacx Flow smart trainer and 4iiii power meter. Power match is not working well for me so I'd like to ideally just use the Flow in erg mode, however the power is quite a bit off from the 4iiii.

In order to do this I'm running in resistance mode. Ideally I'd like to output the power meter data and the smart trainer power data from the one Trainer Road ride file... Does anyone know if this is possible?

The way I'm doing it currently is running one power source to TR and one to my Garmin, then getting the raw data from Golden Cheetah and graphing both in Excel...this is a bit clumsy and time consuming though.

Sorry to hear PowerMatch has been acting up on you.

We'd love to try and hash out the issues you've been running into! Power discrepancies between devices aren't always consistent, so ideally we'd like to get PowerMatch working so you don't need to worry about any difference. But as far as tracking the difference, comparing the power output on a head-unit and another within TrainerRoad is likely the easiest solution.

Can you follow up with our support team at support@trainerroad.com when you have some time? We'll have one of our agents investigate what's causing your issues, and we'll get you back in action as soon as we possibly can!

Thanks! Looking forward to getting to the bottom of this for you.

Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Thank you Nick for the reply, I emailed support later on after posting here. Christian has replied and given me a couple of pointers. I'm going to give it another go tonight and see how it works out.

On a side note, I'm very impressed with support replying both on here and to my email so quickly, so thanks for that

markp80

Daniel B wrote:

Evening all, after a bit of advice, and or opinions really.

the novelty of this one, as I read and acted upon the instructions, was that I rode each pair of intervals at 85 and 75 respectively.
The 85 was not much different of course, as I usually bounce between that and 95, but the 75 felt very different.
BUT I was able to hold the power with 'comparative' ease, and felt good during and after it.

Intrigued to see what people think.

Hi Daniel,

I think that's an interesting post you've written. I've nothing scientific to share, but can throw my personal experience into the ring. My personal cadence started out low but has gradually (and slowly) increased over the last couple of years. I probably find it comfortable around 80, but struggle to hold any decent power above 85.

On the turbo, I've tried changing cadence mid-intervals to see what the effect is. When I'm pushing a high cadence and really struggling to hold the power level, I often find if I change to a higher gear I can hold the same power much easier - similar to what you experienced.

The caveat to that is, if it is say VO2max power levels, then low cadence definitely puts strain on my knees, so I do try to find a happy medium.

So, while I can hit a high intensity interval target with cadence in the 80-85 range, I can't hold that same power at higher cadences. But if I'm doing a lower zone recovery, such as say Carter, I can happily hold 90, or go down as low as 70-75 without hurting my knees.

I think my point is that the cadence at which I can hold high power output has slowly increased the more I train, but I feel more comfortable putting out higher sustained power at cadences towards the lower end of my range - knees permitting.

Cheers,
MarkP

daniel_b

MarkP80 wrote:

Daniel B wrote:

Evening all, after a bit of advice, and or opinions really.

the novelty of this one, as I read and acted upon the instructions, was that I rode each pair of intervals at 85 and 75 respectively.
The 85 was not much different of course, as I usually bounce between that and 95, but the 75 felt very different.
BUT I was able to hold the power with 'comparative' ease, and felt good during and after it.

Intrigued to see what people think.

Hi Daniel,

I think that's an interesting post you've written. I've nothing scientific to share, but can throw my personal experience into the ring. My personal cadence started out low but has gradually (and slowly) increased over the last couple of years. I probably find it comfortable around 80, but struggle to hold any decent power above 85.

On the turbo, I've tried changing cadence mid-intervals to see what the effect is. When I'm pushing a high cadence and really struggling to hold the power level, I often find if I change to a higher gear I can hold the same power much easier - similar to what you experienced.

The caveat to that is, if it is say VO2max power levels, then low cadence definitely puts strain on my knees, so I do try to find a happy medium.

So, while I can hit a high intensity interval target with cadence in the 80-85 range, I can't hold that same power at higher cadences. But if I'm doing a lower zone recovery, such as say Carter, I can happily hold 90, or go down as low as 70-75 without hurting my knees.

I think my point is that the cadence at which I can hold high power output has slowly increased the more I train, but I feel more comfortable putting out higher sustained power at cadences towards the lower end of my range - knees permitting.

Cheers,
MarkP

Thanks for your input Mark - interesting indeed - I ran through the very same workout yesterday by chance, and found it just as good - even though I wan it at 104% instead of the 100 I did it at last time - for no specific reason I chose not to carry it out in the drops, and spent most of the time on the tops or hoods.

I think 75 is about as low as I would want to go, before my knees would start hurting - interesting, as when I first started riding, and checked it, my natural cadence on the flat was 77, which likely means my average was 75 or lower.

So it's a bit of a weird one, and one i am not skilled enough to know what to do with it

I might try my next FTP at a lower cadence that previous - I tend to end up at 90\91 for the twin 8 test I do, so perhaps I will try the first one at 85, or perhaps even 80, and see how that goes.

Am wondering if overloading the muscles for a short period could prove efficient - and I guess the more you push your muscles, the more you build them, so as a layman with no knowledge, I would have assumed it is beneficial to stretch both cardio and muscular ability - presumably as demonsrated in this specific TR workout, although it does seem to be a rarity.

Thinking that it would not be a good strategy for a 50 miler, but perhaps for a 10 mile TT, it could be a useful tool.

Perhaps I just need to find my own personal optimum, where I am using both as efficiently as possible, and also asuming this will change and fluctuate as you progress, or regress in terms of strength or cardio fitness.

Fascinating stuff, or I find it so anyway :-)

Nick Kanwetz

2plus2 wrote:

Thank you Nick for the reply, I emailed support later on after posting here. Christian has replied and given me a couple of pointers. I'm going to give it another go tonight and see how it works out.

On a side note, I'm very impressed with support replying both on here and to my email so quickly, so thanks for that

Very welcome! And glad to hear that Christian and you are working together to resolve everything. I'm sure you'll be on the right track in a jiffy!

Thank you for the awesome feedback too! We appreciate it.

Cheers,

Get Faster with TrainerRoad

navrig2

WARNING

Niaive Question Ahead :roll:

I realise that it is possible to create custom workouts but I was wondering if it was possible to create a workout profile which would emulate a known climb. Obviously the workout has to have a time/duration and that the duration for climbing a particular hill will vary by individual and their fitness however if you were to assume that every hill takes an hour to climb then it could be profiled by power output to reflect the varying gradients/lengths.

For example I know that on the 2 occasions I have climbed Sa Colobra I have taken an hour (moving time with 3 I am fecked stops). Therefore having it profiled over an hour would suit me. Someone fitter may just then change the 100% setting to, say, 120%. Someone less fit may adjust the 100% to 80%. Both would ride for an hour and the profile would still reflect the shape, perhaps not true gradient of the climb.

La Madeleine took me a lot longer (than an hour) so I would have to drop the effort to, say, 80% etc

Or was it even a stupid question?

bobmcstuff

Navrig2 wrote:

WARNING

Niaive Question Ahead :roll:

I realise that it is possible to create custom workouts but I was wondering if it was possible to create a workout profile which would emulate a known climb. Obviously the workout has to had a time/duration and that duration for climbing a particular hill will vary by individual and their fitness however if you were to assume that every hill takes an hour to climb then it could be profiled by power output to reflect the varying gradients/lengths.

For example I know that on the 2 occasions I have climbed Sa Colobra I have taken an hour (moving time with 3 I am fecked stops). Therefore having it profiled over an hour would suit me. Someone fitter may just then change the 100% setting to, say, 120%. Someone less fit may adjust the 100% to 80%. Both would ride for an hour and the profile would still reflect the shape, perhaps not true gradient of the climb.

Or was it even a stupid question?

You'd just make a 1hr long interval at whatever % of FTP you might expect to sustain over that route. If there are slight changes in gradient you could reduce the target power by a couple of % for those points to simulate the slight recovery you would get at that point.

There would be no need for different people to increase or decrease the intensity since the workouts are created by % of FTP not by absolute figures, so the variation from person to person is already accounted for.

navrig2

bobmcstuff wrote:

Navrig2 wrote:

WARNING

Niaive Question Ahead :roll:

I realise that it is possible to create custom workouts but I was wondering if it was possible to create a workout profile which would emulate a known climb. Obviously the workout has to had a time/duration and that duration for climbing a particular hill will vary by individual and their fitness however if you were to assume that every hill takes an hour to climb then it could be profiled by power output to reflect the varying gradients/lengths.

For example I know that on the 2 occasions I have climbed Sa Colobra I have taken an hour (moving time with 3 I am fecked stops). Therefore having it profiled over an hour would suit me. Someone fitter may just then change the 100% setting to, say, 120%. Someone less fit may adjust the 100% to 80%. Both would ride for an hour and the profile would still reflect the shape, perhaps not true gradient of the climb.

Or was it even a stupid question?

You'd just make a 1hr long interval at whatever % of FTP you might expect to sustain over that route. If there are slight changes in gradient you could reduce the target power by a couple of % for those points to simulate the slight recovery you would get at that point.

There would be no need for different people to increase or decrease the intensity since the workouts are created by % of FTP not by absolute figures, so the variation from person to person is already accounted for.

Thanks. I knew about the % of FTP but hadn't linked that with what I was trying to do.

If I get a chance I might dabble with it. I just need to find YouTube videos which cover the climbs in their entirety. For example the GCN video of Sa Colobra only covers certain bits of it.

I guess this will be a rainy day project overt he winter.

daniel_b

Navrig2 wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

Navrig2 wrote:

WARNING

Niaive Question Ahead :roll:

I realise that it is possible to create custom workouts but I was wondering if it was possible to create a workout profile which would emulate a known climb. Obviously the workout has to had a time/duration and that duration for climbing a particular hill will vary by individual and their fitness however if you were to assume that every hill takes an hour to climb then it could be profiled by power output to reflect the varying gradients/lengths.

For example I know that on the 2 occasions I have climbed Sa Colobra I have taken an hour (moving time with 3 I am fecked stops). Therefore having it profiled over an hour would suit me. Someone fitter may just then change the 100% setting to, say, 120%. Someone less fit may adjust the 100% to 80%. Both would ride for an hour and the profile would still reflect the shape, perhaps not true gradient of the climb.

Or was it even a stupid question?

You'd just make a 1hr long interval at whatever % of FTP you might expect to sustain over that route. If there are slight changes in gradient you could reduce the target power by a couple of % for those points to simulate the slight recovery you would get at that point.

There would be no need for different people to increase or decrease the intensity since the workouts are created by % of FTP not by absolute figures, so the variation from person to person is already accounted for.

Thanks. I knew about the % of FTP but hadn't linked that with what I was trying to do.

If I get a chance I might dabble with it. I just need to find YouTube videos which cover the climbs in their entirety. For example the GCN video of Sa Colobra only covers certain bits of it.

I guess this will be a rainy day project overt he winter.

That is an interesting proposal, and I assume this is pretty much what BigRingVR gives you in theory, as does FulGaz if you have apple products in your house, which I do not!

Are you looking to tie it in with a video, or literally just have the hours ride with the bars and lines to watch?

navrig2

I'd like to be able to tie it into a video of the actual climb replicated on TR. The issue will be that the video will be filmed at the speed of the person videoing it and wont respond to the TR user trying harder or less hard. So the initial synchronisation could quickly be lost.

All a bit of a pipe dream given that there is loads of software out there which does this to some extent.

barongreenback

Hi all

I’ve just started TrainerRoad and I really like the structured approach. I’ve started the low volume base plan as I travel a lot for work so riding the bike tends to be reserved for Friday through to Monday and only 3 sessions are realistic - I tend to use whatever gym equipment I can find when I’m in a hotel mid-week. If I do have extra days at home, are there any particular workouts you can recommend to fill in the gaps?

Thanks

daniel_b

barongreenback wrote:

Hi all

I’ve just started TrainerRoad and I really like the structured approach. I’ve started the low volume base plan as I travel a lot for work so riding the bike tends to be reserved for Friday through to Monday and only 3 sessions are realistic - I tend to use whatever gym equipment I can find when I’m in a hotel mid-week. If I do have extra days at home, are there any particular workouts you can recommend to fill in the gaps?

Thanks

When I have seen comments on this kind of thing, they generally (IMHO) seem to suggest you would be better to go for a higher volume program, and then substitute rides.

In your position, I would either do that, or just have a scan through the mid or high volume programs, and have a read up on what each of the workouts entail, and add them to favourites or make a list of likely candidates.

Personally, I just about have enough time to follow the mid volume plans, and tend to marginally cheat a bit, by carrying out 5 workouts in 4 sessions - ie the 1 easier session, I tack on to the end of a harder one, so am on the bike for 105\120 minutes in one block.

Then complete the other 3 workouts over the last 3 days of the working week.

My usual schedule is:
Monday afternoon - Double session
Wednesday pre breakfast - 90
Thursday evening - 75\90
Friday afternoon - 90

On that note, I may have made a bit of a booboo this week - near the end of sweet spot base 1 for the second time, and did my double session on Monday afternoon.
Work and childcare commitments then allowed me to carry out a workout on Tuesday morning, which I did, and it was a hard one, TSS of 122, and an IF of 0.9.
Followed that up this morning with a 75 minute, all be it only a TSS of 90, and an IF of 0.85.

And in theory I have a 90 minute, 112 TSS\0.87 IF tomorrow.
And then I was planning to pop one of the easier 6 week rides in on Friday afternoon.
Thinkin about it, if I wanted to keep riding, I could reach ahead and grab one of the lwoer intensity recovery style rides from next week and ride that tomorrow night, and carry out the last hard ride on Friday instead?

However this afternoon, I am getting a slight bit of discomfort from my right knee, so am wondering if I am\have overdone it, and need to rest it up for a bit, or whether I should plough on regardless.
It's a strange pain, almost feels like it is bruised in the kneecap area, no sign of swelling or anything though.

About to get on the Kona to go and collect my daughter, so will pedal gently, and see how it feels.

Anyone had similar, and if so what did you do?

EDIT: Back from child collection, and my knee felt fine whilst cycling :?
The 'bruise' feeling is on the inside of the knee, muscle I guess, and occasionally gives a little twinge.
Will see how it feels in the morning.